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What happens to all the bottles of water that are confiscated?

Is your bottle of water half-full or half-empty? Once you have passed Security Control, it won't make any difference. For security reasons, any bottled drinks are not permitted once through Passport Control. Do you still have one on you? Please dispose them in the white bins in the Departure Hall or leave them behind at Security Control. But what happens to the bottles left behind?

Flesjes

Recycle symbol made of used plastic bottles

70,000 kg of plastic a year

Your plastic bottle isn't the only one to disappear into the bin. Every week, this happens to 130,000 on average. That is quite a substantial amount of plastic. All told, it is 70,000 kg a year! And this mountain of plastic waste is continuing to grow, since more and more passengers are departing from Schiphol.

A lot can be done with plastic

We find it quite a waste to just discard the bottles to be incinerated. You can do much better things with plastic. And that includes recycling it. Our waste collection company SUEZ has come up with an excellent plan.

Crushing and shredding

All of the bottles we collect first go into a crusher. This does exactly what you would expect: it crushes the bottles and separates the plastic and water. The water goes to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol's water treatment installation, while the plastic goes to the shredder. The shredder shreds the bottles into small bits and makes bales of plastic out of these.

Ready for recycling

And that means that your water bottle is ready for recycling. It could end up as a new water bottle. Or it could be made into textile such as fleece. Without your even knowing it, you could be walking around in a real Schiphol jumper!

Would you like to know which liquids are allowed in your hand baggage and which are not? Click here.